Thalavan - Movie

 Malayalam so had to watch. A convoluted tale of two cops who are being framed by one character who suddenly springs out in the end. Kept me going till the end though the end was a disappointment.

   

Padosan - Movie

 A found out that there was a re-release of 'Padosan' in theatres and we signed up. Nivedita joined us for the 1030 show. It was a 3 hour film. At 1030 there were just the four of us in the theatre. A couple joined in later. 

As always, Padosan was super fun. I was dog tired and I thought I'd crash out but that's the thing with good movies - they keep you engaged. 

Loved it. The whacky sense of humour, the music, the weird characters.

 

Shodh - Taslima Nasreen

 Shodh is beautifully written by Taslima Nasreen. Somehow it evoked in me memories of the 70s culture, of universities with forward thinking young men and women, with hopes and dreams, with progressive ideas, with freedom and liberation, with experimentation and exploration. Jhurmur, the protagonist is a live wire at the University in Dhaka, with a forward outlook to life and perhaps a dream of fulfilling her potential.

She meets Haroon and is wooed by him and eventually marries him - only to find that he suddenly changes into a conservative husband who does not want her to work, to go out, to serve his parents and his family, to not laugh loudly. The old romantic Haroon completely goes missing as he suspects her of carrying someone else's child and gets it aborted, believes she tricked him into marrying her and so on.

Jhurmur puts up with all the humiliation, suppression until she finally decides to break free in the end and get herself a job as a teacher, and her agency. She reclaims her life and when she does that, I, as the reader, felt a huge surge of relief, of exhilaration, of freedom that comes only with clarity.

I'll live my life like this because I am important. No one else is more important than I am to myself.

I cannot write or explain it well nor will I try to - but the story is so well told of how this high spirited girl with so much potential falls for a possessive man who woos her under the guise of being a liberal minded man but unmasks his true self - and how she slowly finds herself losing herself until she decides to reclaim herself. Perfectly paced, beautifully narrated.

Loved it.   

The Tirunelveli Diaries - Sankar Nagar

 The bus drive from Tuticorin to Tirunelveli was about an hour. We landed up in Sankar Nagar on the outskirts of Tirunelveli, on the road to Madurai and onward to Chennai. Sankar Nagar was also where India Cements has its factory and a lovely township for its workers. Adjoining the wall was a very well maintained cricket ground owned by India Cements which is the venue for the very popular TNPL matches every year.

I was struck by how well the ground, the nets, the township was maintained. Not a blade of grass more, no paint jobs needed, no rusting equipment, no lazing employees - everything was in place and everyone was busy at work. At the helm of affairs as far as the ground was concerned was Kothanda Raman the curator who had a fine knowledge of the game, a keen eye, a professional work ethic - no wonder he is great friends with MSD. I bumped into my old pal Chinna or Vaasan as I know him or like his name onte card says S. Sreenivason. We had made this trip to Guwahati with the South Zone U22 team and we won the limited over trophy!

Jyothi Shetty and I were assigned a nice air conditioned cabin which served as the commntators box in TNPL games. We walked around the campus which looked like a miniature BHEL campus - officers bungalows, workers homes, well kept roads, lots of greenery and peacocks all around. 

We found that under the open steps on the pavilion were rooms that served as class rooms for primary school children.

The ground at Sankar Nagar was home for three matches and I loved every moment of it.

Why We Kneel, Why We Rise - Michael Holding

 The murder by white policemen of George Floyd and the outrage the sparked the BlackLivesMatter movement gave former West India fast bowler Michael Holding an opportunity to express his view on Sky Sports on racism. One thing led to another and he ended up writing this book about racism with inputs from sportspeople - Usain Bolt, Naomi Osaka, Thierry Henry among others. He does a fine job of researching history and presents a compelling and comprehensive narrative of how being treated as the 'other' had its effects on black people, on privilege and how it feels to be treated differently because of the colour of your skin.

For example Usain Bolt says he walked into a watch store in UK and the salesperson says something that indicates that the watches may be out of his range. Bolt buys it without asking for its price just to prove that he can afford it. But it stings.

In delving into history Holding says Christ was certainly not white as they make him out to be because he was born in the Middle East. He speaks about Septimus Severus who was a Black Emperor who ruled Rome and how advanced Ghana was in terms of science and trade etc. He laughs at Columbus's claims of discovering a land that was already inhabited and how he claimed it for the Spanish! Claimed it! He traces the beginnings of the slave trade in 1562 when Admiral John Hawkins led the first slave trading voyage to the West Indies - the Dutch, South Africans and finally the British took control. He notes how 132 slaves were thrown overboard ship Zong, the Haitian revolution which had 140 years of massacres of indigenous population by Aussies (and laughably Haiti was asked to pay reparations to France for its freedom). Similarly when the British slave trade was abolished in 1807 reparations were paid to the traders which constituted of 40% of the British income. He writes of the assimilation of native children by Australians, race riots in Britain and Amritsar, 36 murdered in the Tulsa massacre, black sharecroppers being used in medical experiments, the Bengal famine where 40 lakh died, 2 crore died in the Indian partition, 69 backs murdered in Sharpeville, murders of Mlcolm X, Martin Luther King, how Nixon's war on drugs was aimed at the blacks, Kissinger's report that tried to slow down black population, the Windrush scandal, Stephen Lawrence, Breonna Taylor, Ahmand Arbery, Michael Brown.

He talks of how black people founded Los Angeles (52 early settlers), were instrumental in discovery of inoculation, fire extinguishers, door knobs, elevators, jazz, carbon filaments, stethoscope, Of heroes like Rosa Parks, Tommie Smith (black glove at Mexico Olympics), Stephen Biko and his Columbus song, Colin Kaepernick, Mandela, Obama...

Michael Holding makes a powerful case of how they were made to kneel - all that was dehumanising, slavery, lynchings, fear and how they rise through their excellence in sports, music, culture, dance, science, business. A case for relooking at history anew. It surely opened my eyes to many new things.     

The Tirunelveli Diaries - Tuticorn

 When I was first told we had our matches in Tirunelveli I wondered how one gets there. Apart from the halwa I had no idea about where it was etc. But when I looked at it on the map I realised it had its advantages- it was close to Kanya Kumari - a place which i had promised both my Mom and my Mother-in-law i'd take but didn't, and also Rameshwaram.

Tuticorin airport - ship model

To get to Tirunelveli we were booked on a flight to Tuticorin (every security guy at the airport asked - which state is this place in). Tuticorin is now called Thoothukodi and is a busy hub of fishing and peals and salt and exports thanks to a port that it has. It has a long history with French and Portuguese and perhaps English occupation and is a quaint little town.

Salt pans - salt on the right

Jyo and I went on the tour and we started on day that had heavy rains and we were not sure if we could make it to the airport in time. A flight to Bangalore, a few hours layover which we spent munching on egg sandwiches and then off to Tuticorin. It was a really small airport and we got out, collected our bags, hired a cab and headed off on a 45 minute drive to Tuticorin town where the team was staying at SRM Hotel.

Lovely huge church

Chapel

It was a nice little hotel, pretty close to the sea (we could see it from the windows), good food. Jyo and I got out of the hotel and strolled about it (he is maniacal about his 10000 steps a day). We passed a bank street with all the major banks which was to be expected considering it was a port town, saw some lovely old churches, old buildings, found a beach (Muthu Nagar beach) and a lovely juice bar.

Beach - really nice (and small)

Siron Juice bar - lovely juices (date milk shake)

Postal Business Bank

Headed back to the room after a quick detour to the TASMAC shops which are classic places to be in. 

SRM Hotel

Fishing boat and some coracles - motifs of Tuticorin

A nice evening with Chatterjee and Jyo, some dinner and we settled down to a good match - against an Ishan Sharma led Jharkhand at Tirunelveli (another 45 minutes away).   

Back After a Long tour of 23 Days!

 Just got back after a long tour of 23 days or so. I never went this far south of India - Tirunelveli was where the Hyderabad team was playing Buchi Babu tournament - a tournament we remember winning in 1986-87 under Shivlal Yadav's captaincy. This time we went to watch the 4-day games and since we won the tournament emphatically with four outright wins including once very tense game against Tamil Nadu President's XI, it was a trip that was well worth it.

Since there was time on our hands between games (two rest days between each game), I managed to visit Rameshwaram, Dhanushkodi, Kanyakumari, Suchindram, Madurai.

The winning Hyderabad team with the Buchi Babu trophy at the picturesque Natham ground near Dundigal in Tamil Nadu. We travelled along a scenic route of 45 minutes everyday from Madurai!

Anyway, now to get down to the tour details.